MU23 Dona Eis Requiem
by PhantomChajo
Summary: pray, suppliant and kneeling, a heart as contrite as ashes take Thou my ending into Thy care. Setting: MU Verse


Dona Eis Requiem  
By Lady MoonHawke and PhantomChajo

  
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.  
Et lux perpetua luceat eis.  
-Traditional Funeral Mass

Jon stood in the center of the hangar, watching the silvery-white ship as it slid through the magnetic barrier at the end of the launch tunnel and made its way in, engine rumbling quietly as the silent docking lights flashed. He stepped back as the ship entered the hangar proper and moved past the giant mark on the deckplates where the Maraj normally rested. The sleek craft set down near the SprintHawk and the rumble of its engines was cut almost immediately along with the flashing lights. A moment later, the mid-body hatch hissed as it unsealed, and slowly tilted down, revealing a short stairway. A figure stood in the hatchway, slumped and discouraged. He looked up, dark circles under his eyes. "Permission to come aboard, Lieutenant?"

Jon snapped to attention. "Granted sir, and gladly." He stepped back as the figure came down the stairs. "Thank you for coming so quickly, General Landon."

Steven nodded tiredly. "You're very welcome, though I can't say it's a pleasure to be here at the moment. Or rather that I find nothing pleasant in the circumstances. Where is everyone?" he asked, gesturing to the empty landing platform.

"Out patrolling, sir. I've tried to keep things going as normally as possible. The last few hours have been very awkward."

"I can imagine. Call them back, Lieutenant. I want to know what's been going on." He turned and headed for the elevator in the corner.

"Yes, sir. Right away." It was so good to have some kind of order to follow. "Sir? About Lieutenant Stargazer."

The general stopped mid-step and turned back to face him. "Yes, Lieutenant? What about her?"

Jon took a careful breath. "This has hit her very hard, sir. I went ahead and took her off active duty."

The general opened his mouth, then closed it again and nodded. "I see. Thank you, Lieutenant. That was very considerate of you. I'll talk to her after I get some understanding of exactly what's happened." He turned and resumed his course to the elevator. "Come on, Lieutenant," he said as the doors opened. "We don't have time now to stand around chatting."

"All right," Steven said, dropping into a chair at the head of the conference table. He was almost uncomfortably aware of the two chairs left empty, one for Aurora, and one for her father. "What do we know?"

There was a moment of silence around the table from the red-eyed, tight-jawed group, then all eyes shifted to Zan. She closed her own eyes for a moment, then sighed heavily.

"He met with an informant," she said at last, "we think. There's no official record of the conversation, but Celestia happened to be perched in the office, and recorded the audio, and what little video there is of value. The snitch's name is Clet; he's a nobody operating out of Fense. Apparently he had some valuable information and wanted to sell it to Stargazer personally. The Old Man went along with it, including making no record of the meet. It's pure luck we know anything at all." She shook her head, took a deep breath, and continued. "Somehow, Condor managed to tag along. We have security footage of the two of them leaving. The meet was set to take place somewhere in the asteroid field that makes up the Limit. We weren't even really aware he was missing before the report came in that the Equalizer was drifting. He" She stopped to take another deep breath. "He was found drifting near it. There's been no sign of Condor."

Steven sat a moment, trying to take it all in. Stargazer, the stubborn old fool, had gone out for one more ride, one that had cost him his life. "Any suspects? Unusual suspects, I mean. Obviously Mon*Star tops the list."

"No one in particular," Quicksilver said. "Nothing we can pin down. There are always strange rumors floating around from Fense and the other asteroids. But there's nothing solid."

Steven nodded, then sighed. "Okay. Who found him?"

The eyes slid around the table again til they came to rest on Zan once again. "Oh, hell," she muttered. "Why is it always me?" She lifted her head until her eyes met Steven's, then slipped to glance at one of the empty chairs. "She found him."

He was out of his chair in an instant. "Dismissed," he said shortly, striding out the door.

  
She was in the rec room when he finally tracked her down, curled into a corner of an old ratty sofa, a worn pillow hugged tight to her chest. Her throat was too raw to wail, and her eyes too dry to cry, but still she wept, shoulders heaving in silent sobs. She looked up when he came in, and her puffy red eyes shot him through the heart.

He sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders and pulling her into his chest. "I'm so sorry, Angel. I would give anything for you not to have seen that."

Her sobs subsided to sniffles, and she looked up at him. "Stuh- Steven. I I He I couldn't" She broke down again, shaking as he held her.

"Have you been here since you called me?" he asked. When she nodded, he sighed softly and kissed her on the head. "Come on." He stood and lifted her easily. "Let's get you upstairs and tucked into bed. Things will look better in the morning."

Once in the elevator, he bypassed the crew deck entirely, taking her up to the fifth level, where the VIP quarters were housed, and into the suite he usually occupied during visits. There would be a great deal of activity on the lower decks in the next few hours, and he really didn't want her disturbed by it, or by the crew coming by to express their sympathy. It might be sincerely meant, but at this point, it couldn't help her at all. 

He set her down, tucking her under the blankets, and she immediately began to squirm, discarding bits of clothing and drawing the covers tighter. Finally, she stilled, a shock of dark hair and the curve of one cheek and her nose visible. He traced one finger down her still-damp cheek and carefully pulled the battered pillow from the rec room free.

"Sleep now, little one. I promise you, it's going to get better eventually."

  
Steven found the team up in Command, huddled around various consoles and reading through printouts. He stopped behind Skyedansuer, watching over her shoulder as she dealt with incoming calls, carefully putting off people looking for appointments with the Commander.

"Good job," he said when the lines went quiet for a moment. "Keep putting them off, as much as possible. If anyone has a huge problem with it, I'll be willing to meet with them wherever they are. That should buy us a little time to make some decisions." He squeezed her shoulder fondly. Aurora had said over and over again that Krys was a real friend, her only true confidant. "Keep up the good work, Corporal. I know it's hard right now, but it's going to get better."

She smiled gratefully in return. "Thank you, sir. I appreciate that."

He nodded and crossed the room to Quicksilver, who was working at his own terminal. "What have you got, Lieutenant?"

"Info on Clet, sir. Not that there's much to say. Zan's gone to ask quietly around Fense if anyone knows what he was onto."

Steven frowned a little. "I wish she'd said something to me first, but I'd probably have asked her to do something like that anyway." He sighed. "She's keeping in touch? The last thing we need is for someone else to turn up missing. There's been far too much of that in the past."

"She's made both of her scheduled check-ins so far. She's keeping in closer contact that normal."

"Good to hear. Corporal, call me when she gets back." Skyedansuer nodded, and he turned back to Quicksilver. "Lieutenant, this is probably a painful subject, but I need to see the Commander's body. Is it here?"

Quicksilver swallowed tightly and nodded. "Down in medical. It's it's not really pretty, sir."

"No. I didn't think it would be, but that doesn't change things much. Come on down, Lieutenant. I'd like you to look it over with me."

  
The elevator slid quietly down the shaft, making the strained silence in the car all the more obvious.

At long last, Quicksilver cleared his throat nervously. "I'm, ahhh, sorry for your loss, sir."

Steven shot him a glance, lifting one pale eyebrow. "You worked with the man every day for the last decade and then some, Lieutenant. Maybe I should be saying the same to you."

"I meant it more in the personal sense, sir. I know he was" he paused a moment, looking for the right word, "like family to you, sir."

The pale brows drew together in slight displeasure. "I think it would be better if you kept your ruminations about my family to yourself. It's not a subject I'm likely to want to discuss with you. Wounds heal, Lieutenant, even the deep ones. But they leave scars, and that's something neither you nor I can change. And frankly, I'd like to leave it at that. Agreed?"

"Yes, sir. Heard and understood."

The faint lines smoothed out. "Good. What was the condition of Commander Stargazer's body when it was recovered?"

"Bad, sir. Very bad." The elevator slowed to a stop and they exited, making their way through the halls to the medical bay. "He hadn't been dead very long; it was only a matter of hours between his leaving the station, under the eye of the security camera, and the time Seymour called us to say the Equalizer was drifting. Lieutenant Stargazer was in the Sprinthawk, and she radioed in that she would check it out."

Steven's lips tightened. "And she found him drifting?"

"Yes, sir. Badly beaten, and already dead, as far as we can tell. She wasn't very coherent, sir."

The sickbay doors slid open silently as they approached. They entered, and a figure in the small, glassed-in cubicle stood.

"General, allow me to introduce Dr. Shal'Shan. He's Dr. Taugosu's first student in Cybernetics, and he's been good enough to take up the residency position here. Doctor, this is General Landon. He was here to look into the Commander's death."

"Good to meet you, doctor. I've read your work on the future of Cybernetics, and I was very impressed."

"Thank you, General. The pleasure is all mine, though I wish we had met under happier circumstances. I presume you wish to view the body?"

"I do, doctor, unless there's a problem?"

"Not as yet." Shal'Shan led them through the main treatment area to a door marked 'Private.' "We don't have extensive morgue facilities, but I have run a number of tests, and I can give you those reports, if you wish."

It was cold through the door, the environmental controls set to their lowest, turning the room into a large freezer. He led them to a sheet draped bed, a still form outlined in white.

"Not just yet," Steven said, hands fisting unconsciously as he stared down at the table. "Just give us the basics for now."

"Of course. The Commander suffered a great number of blows around the time of death. As I'm sure you are aware, Stargazer's cybernetics were more replacements than enhancements or genetic engineering such as we use now. A number of the components in his limbs were smashed, damaged beyond what we would normally be able to repair. In addition, there were a number of blows to the torso that did extensive damage to the living tissue underneath, and he sustained several cranial blows, any one of which could have been sufficient to kill him."

"In short," Quicksilver said, "he was beaten to death."

"Exactly so, Lieutenant," the doctor replied. "Exactly so."

  
Steven stared at the sheet-draped form for several long minutes, tuning out the quiet conversation between Quicksilver and the doctor. Something nagged at him, tugged at his senses, trying to get his attention, but he brushed it aside. Now was not the time to focus on any kind of sentimentality.

"Have you recovered the disk from his ocular appliance yet?" he asked quietly.

Shal'Shan looked up, puzzled. "Disk? I know of no disk, General Landon. In his ocular piece, you say?" He moved around to the other side of the table and carefully peeled away the sheet.

Stargazer's face was battered and mangled, unrecognizable in death, and out of the corner of his eye, Steven saw Quicksilver turn his face away, heard the grinding of his teeth as the Lieutenant locked his jaw, and felt the urge to offer him an out. "Lieutenant, if you want to leave, feel free. There's no reason for you to see this."

He shook his head tightly. "I'll stay, sir. It's just"

"I understand." Steven carefully kept his own eyes off the ruined features, focusing instead of the smashed implant. "It's been damaged," he said unnecessarily.

"So it has," Shal'Shan agreed. "Gentlemen, this is not going to be easy or delicate, removing the data disk. It you would prefer to wait in the outer treatment room-"

"No," they said in unison. "No," Steven continued. "It could be vital evidence. I'll need to witness its removal."

The doctor selected a few tools and set to work, murmuring a prayer of some kind in his native language as he worked.

"Have you already applied some kind of preservative?" Steven asked, wrinkling his nose a little. The sense that something was wrong, or at least out of place, was back again, stronger this time.

"Not at all, General. And due to the low room temperature, the process of decay has been arrested considerably. I'm sorry. It's not a pretty topic to discuss."

"No, it isn't," Steven agreed. It was the smell that was bothering him; a heavy smell, of fruit and flowers and leaves all overripe under a bright sun. And it had no business anywhere near an old man who'd hardly been out of Limbo in the last decade.

"What are you hoping to find?" Quicksilver asked, face still carefully averted.

Steven snapped out of his reverie, blinking, and shook his head quickly. "Who killed him, most of all. Who this Clet is and why they were meeting is of secondary interest."

With a few more careful moves, the doctor had the disk out, and handed it to Steven on a square of sterile cotton. "It's all yours, General."

"Thank you, Doctor. Any ideas on where I can view this?" he asked.

"Given the age of Commander Stargazer's equipment, I'm afraid the only place you could use it would be his office." His pained expression was clearly readable.

"It's certainly not my first choice," Steven said with a sigh. "Okay, Lieutenant. Saddle up. Still more work to do."

  
The concealed screen in Stargazer's office proved capable of playing back the few seconds of relevant video they had, and the general immersed himself in picking out even the most minute of clues from the few shaky seconds. Quicksilver watched him, a little in awe of his determination and attention to detail.

"We might get something from these star positions," Steven was saying, making notes on a chart about the relative location of certain stars.

"Getting comfy?" Zan asked from the door, frustration and annoyance tingeing her voice.

Jon jumped a foot in the air at her unexpected appearance. "Jesus fucking Christ, Zan! Don't sneak around like that."

She shrugged, tapping one moccasined toe. "Walk softly, and carry a big gun. So are you moving in, Enigma-boy?"

"Language, Lieutenant." Steven cast a glance at Zan, then looked back to the screen. "Is this Clet?" he asked, tapping a hazy image. He hadn't so much twitched at her sudden arrival.

She crossed the room silently and studied the figure he indicated. "Could be," she allowed. "Or could have been, rather. I tracked down Clet, sort of. He's dead."

"Did you kill him?" Steven asked calmly.

"No," she replied, equally calmly. "I was more interested in talking to him than exacting some kind of misplaced justice. But he's dead, just the same. I found him."

"What happened?"

"The same thing, as far as I can tell, though whoever did it took a lot less pleasure in it. It was over in a few quick, well-placed blows."

Steven shook his head, leaning against the edge of the desk. "So the Commander's lured to a meeting with this guy, it looks like they make contact, and they both end up dead inside of 24 hours." He looked back to the blurry screen for a moment. "Do we even know that's Clet? When did he die?"

Zan sighed. "In the last 6 to 12 hours. Certainly after the Commander."

Steven pushed the play button again, and the grainy playback started up. The perspective shifted, as though Stargazer was approaching the other figure, then there was a horrid crunching noise, and a grunt, and the camera view swung around, and into static.

"It's useless," Steven said at long last. "Completely and utterly useless."

  
Aurora worked slowly, carefully through the cards in front of her, trying to lose herself in their stately order. She had ceased to hear the mournful music she had put on, so desperate was she to sink into a world she could control.

The game was going no where, and with a sigh, she dropped the remainder of the deck and started flipping untouched piles into a stack to shuffle.

"What are you doing down here?"

She looked up from her shuffling to see Jon, red-eyed and rough-jawed, leaning against the door frame. "Couldn't sleep anymore. Sixteen hours out of the last twenty-four was just too much." She held up the deck. "Gin? I'm not getting anywhere with solitaire. Maybe there's a message in that."

He sat down next to her as she started to deal the cards. "Where's the general?"

Aurora chuckled. "He is asleep. He's been up for forty hours. This whole mess caught him right at the end of a day, and he's been awake ever since. He finally crashed just after I woke up."

Jon rearranged him hand, weighing his options. "I'm surprised. I thought you'd-"

"You thought I'd what?!" she blazed. "Screw my boyfriend since he was handy?!"

Jon held onto his patience with both hands, reminding himself that she was grieving for her murdered father. "I thought you'd be with your husband; that he would be comforting you."

Tension sang through her muscles. "That's the problem with the current arrangements," she commented, apropos of nothing. "What Zan knows, Emily knows, and therefore, you know."

"What Zan and Em know is between them. I know because you are a good officer." He chuckled at her confused look. "You came back from leave and promptly updated your file to reflect a changed personal status, married, and a new next of kin, Steven Landon. I get alerts every time a personnel file is changed." He chuckled again, drawing one card and discarding another. "I think it's pretty ironic that if you were anyone else, you would have had to tell someone. You and I are the only ones with access to those files."

She drew and discarded. "And my father," she said softly.

He nodded. "And your father. Did he know?"

She nodded. "He knew what I was planning to do. I don't think he really understood, but he accepted it."

Jon nodded again. "So no comforting?" he asked, getting back to their former topic.

She shook her head. "More like I'm not wanting comfort right now. I'm still too numb or something."

"It will hit eventually," Jon warned her. "When it does, there's nothing here that can't be dropped for a while. If you don't let yourself grieve, you're never going to heal." He drew a card, laid most of his hand onto the table, and discarded. "Gin."

"Damn," Aurora said, counting the points in her hand. "I'm not doing much better with this game after all."

"You have to admit it's more sociable. Anyway, I have to turn in. I'm on tomorrow."

"Let me take it," Aurora begged. "I'm not going to sleep anyway, and if I don't have something to do, I'll go insane."

"Half a shift," he offered. "I'll replace you at noon. Call Zan if you can't get through it before then."

She nodded. "Thanks. See you tomorrow."

"See you then." She was shuffling again as he left, and he could hear the distinctive snap as she laid out another hand of solitaire. He wasn't sure if she was much better now than when he had found her, but she didn't seem worse either, and that had to be worth something.  


  
Zan entered Command early, intending to check on Jon. He'd shouldered a great deal of the burden suddenly dropped on the team, due to the Commander's death. The shock had put Aurora out of commission as well, and Zan could understand that, up to a point. But there was only so much self-pity and wallowing in sorrow she would allow for.

Fortunately enough, it didn't seem likely she'd have to try to drag Aurora from her grief. The late Commander's daughter was at her station, pale, hunched in her seat, and looking tired, but she was there, at least trying to go through the motions. Zan approached her from the side, careful to let her feet scuff a little on the floor. "'Morning."

Aurora looked up from the screen, dark rings under her eyes betraying how she really was before she could open her mouth. "Hi," she said quietly.

Zan leaned back against the console. 'You know, I'm all for getting back on the horse, but if you really need a couple more days, you should take them and get it done with. No one would begrudge you that."

Aurora snorted and shook her head. "I don't need it. And if that's some kind of 'I'm sorry for your loss,' thanks. I'm I'm coping. Universe has a twisted sense of humor, right?"

It was Zan's turn to shake her head. "There's nothing humorous in any of this. As far as I know, no one's laughing." She scanned the room under the plexi-glass dome. "Where's the Mr., anyway?"

"Why does everyone ask me that? Do we look joined at the hip or something?" She sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just notused to the attention yet. He was asleep when I got up."

"Love 'em and leave 'em kind of girl, are you?"

"That is so not your business," Aurora replied tartly, but Zan had accomplished her purpose. Aurora's eyes were snapping and there was some color in her cheeks, along with the barest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. "Can I tell you something?"

Zan shrugged. "I'm not here to talk to myself. As long as you haven't heard voices telling you to run off and save France or something."

Aurora actually chuckled a little. "No. Nothing like that. I'm just thinking about things differently the last few weeks. And it really started to hit me when I when my"

Zan rolled her hand in a 'moving on' gesture. "I get you. Go on."

"I I want kids, Steven wants kids, we want kids together"

"Seems the best way," Zan said. "What's the problem?"

"Here's the problem. This place is the problem. What am I thinking, even considering bringing children into a world where these kinds of things happen, where old men are beaten and broken for nothing?!" She let out a harsh sob, then silenced herself, taking several deep breaths. "Sorry. Didn't intend to have a breakdown. I know how little everyone appreciates those."

"Go back to bed," Zan said, not unkindly. "Curl up with your husband and talk to him about these things. Don't bottle it up and force yourself to go through all this 'Business as normal' shit."

"No," Aurora insisted. "I'm doing this. I said" She took another deep breath, steadying herself. "I said I'd take this half-shift, and I mean to do it. I can't just sit there anymore being broken inside and doing nothing."

"All right," Zan said dubiously. It was clear this was going no where. "But if you're going to fall apart up here, call someone to cover for you." She turned away, headed back to the elevator. "Damned stubborn officers," she muttered.

"I heard that," Aurora called after her.

"I know," Zan said, entering the car. "If I hadn't wanted you to hear-" The closing doors cut her off.

"- I wouldn't have said it," Aurora finished quietly.

Jon arrived a few minutes before noon, and Aurora handed the station over with real gratitude. It had been more exhausting than she'd anticipated, and she moved almost without thought back to the VIP quarters. The suite was empty, and Housekeeping had been through, making the bed and sweeping away almost all signs of habitation. 

She stared for a long moment at the empty bed, but she couldn't summon up the will to crawl into it alone. Instead, she dragged the comforter from where it was folded at the foot and dragged it with her back out to the living room. Wrapping herself in it, she curled up on the couch and waited for the lights to go out.

  
When Aurora awoke, the room was dark, but she could hear the distinctive sound of typing from the desk in the corner. She struggled a little to untangle herself from the comforter and sat up, pushing some errant strands of hair out of her face. "What are you doing?" she asked, voice still a touch rusty.

Steven looked up briefly from his screen with a quick smile, then turned his attention back to the terminal. "Working. Still a few hours of artificial daylight to burn."

"Smart-alek," she muttered, untangling herself further and standing to stretch. "What are you doing working in the dark? You'll ruin your eyes. Lights." The computer-controlled environmentals responded immediately, and the blinked in the bright flood of light. "Okay. I see what you mean. What are you working on?" she asked. The carafe in the kitchenette's automatic coffee maker was full, and she poured herself a cup, downing half of it before topping it off and pouring a second full cup.

"Reports," he replied, accepting the cup he handed her. "Thanks. This is 90% of my day, reading reports and writing up summaries and recommendations."

"And I thought my job is boring," Aurora said. "Do we know anything more?" she asked quietly after a moment.

"Clet's dead, did I tell you that?" She shook her head, and he shrugged. "Wasn't sure I remembered my own name by the time I got back here. Anyway, Zan found him, on Fense. He was beaten, too."

Aurora chewed her lip. "The same killer?"

He shook his head. "No way to tell. But no reason to think it's not. We were able to retrieve the ocular disk. I did tell you that part, didn't I?"

She nodded. "And that it was useless. Damaged fairly early in the attack." She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to repress a shudder.

"Honey, thinking about it won't do you any good."

She swallowed and nodded. "I know. Believe me, I know. I just can't seem to do anything else. Has my mother called back? I couldn't reach her when all this happened."

"She did. She'd like for you to bring him home for the funeral."

Aurora sighed. "Okay. After."

"After what?"

"After I know what to tell her. After I can say 'this is who did it, and he's been locked up in the darkest hole I can find.' After."

"You may never know, Aurora. You have to face that."

"Not yet, I don't."

"Aurora" Steven started.

"No. There's too much yet that hasn't been explored. If we go through everything, and there's nothing, then there's nothing. But until then, I have to believe there's something to find. I can't face this any other way. Something's there. I just have to find it."

Aurora was beginning to regret her hasty words of resolve the night before. The duel task she had set for herself, searching for clues while packing away her father's personal items and files was near heartbreaking.

She'd never thought of the Commander as particularly interested in housekeeping, but in the three days since he had died, dust had started to gather on surfaces, leaving a faint haze across the images of herself, her mother, her little sister. There was a rag in one of the bottom desk drawers, and she liberated it, wiping down the frames carefully before wrapping the pictures in packing wrap and putting them carefully into a box. Then the tedious part began, as she read through file after file, trying to sort the personal from the official. There was so much more than had ever made it to the records; relationships, liaisons, questions. Some of it was nothing more than fourth-hand gossip with only a shred or two of circumstantial evidence to back it up, but she was beginning to understand how her father had kept his finger on the pulse of Limbo. Absolutely nothing was ignored, it seemed, no matter how unlikely. And he had never breathed a word about knowing, or even suspecting some of these things. His silence must have been a golden commodity on the information black market.

Somewhere in the fourth hour of reading, the words started to swim before her eyes, and she closed the folder with a sigh. The last 45 minutes worth of details were starting to blur together and she blinked heavily. Then she folded her arms on the desk and set her head down. Just a short nap, she thought. 15 minutes or so, and I'll hit the next stack. She was asleep within seconds.

Steven stared forlornly out the main viewport at the front of his small craft. It pained him to admit it, but Zan had been right. Even with plain clothes and an unmarked ship, he and Lieutenant Quicksilver stuck out like a sore thumb. He wasn't certain if they had been positively identified yet, but they clearly didn't belong, and that, it seemed, was more than good enough for the inhabitants of Fense.

"Well, Lieutenant, that was a waste of several hours."

"We couldn't have known, sir. It was worth the effort. And for what it's worth, I think you're right. Whoever killed the Commander is responsible for Clet's death as well." Quicksilver traded his sleeveless jean jacket for his official one.

Steven peeled off his battered leather pilot's jacket as well. "Too bad they already cremated his remains. I would have liked to have had a look at the body, just to confirm it for myself."

"I think we can take Zan's word for the condition it was found in."

Steven snorted. "She was certainly right about our reception out here. What do you say we swing by the original scene before going back to the station? I'd like to sweep it for clues myself, and have a look, just to get the feel for the place."

"It's your boat, sir. I'm just along for the ride."

"All right. Next stop, the Light Year Limit. Lifting off."

The door to the late commander's quarters was locked, and the lights off, but those minor inconveniences were of no interest to the room's intruder. Pulling the remainder of his cloak through the mirror, he jumped lightly from the edge of the sink the to floor. He rose to his feet and exited the bathroom, passing quickly through the bedroom and into the suite's main room, slipping behind the terminal and powering it up. It booted promptly, asking him for a password. The intruder flipped the keyboard and smiled to himself. Some people were so predictable. "That's going to get you killed one day, Old Man," he muttered. "Oh, wait. That's right. You're already dead."

He entered a series of commands quickly, moving into the terminal's background functions. From there he set to work, quickly modifying a few files, then erasing all trace of his path, leaving the seemingly inexplicably altered files in place. Then he shut down the terminal and set about perfecting his disguise.

A hooded cloak provided more than enough anonymity for a place like Fense or Bedlama, but here, he would only draw attention to himself. Here, a different disguise was called for. Something more subtle, more amusing.

A few moments later, Zan appeared to slip out the door of the Commander's quarters. She looked both ways, then moved purposefully toward the elevator.

  
Krysten glanced up from her station as the elevator chimed, then looked back down as Zan exited and crossed the room to the office hallway. "Aurora's still in there going through stuff."

Zan merely nodded and grunted an affirmative. Sadly enough, it didn't seem out of the ordinary at all to the young communications officer.

  
There was a short corridor between the round command center and the small office, and he paused there a moment, assessing the activity beyond the old-fashioned door. All was still, quiet for a long moment. He slipped up the hall and opened the door with cautious silence. The office was indeed occupied, and the young woman in the command center had indicated, but the occupant was asleep head pillowed on folded arms. Perfect.

Still in borrowed form, he slipped in soundlessly. The door latch clicked softly, betraying him, and the figure at the desk stirred a little.

"Ah, ah, ah." He whispered quickly under his breath, and she slumped back, breathing deep and regular.

Carefully, he approached the desk, looking quickly through the pile of folders spread around the desk. Just a quick scan revealed that Stargazer had kept copious notes, full of questions, suppositions and conclusions.

"You were close, Old Man," Raven murmured to himself, flipping through a file filled with notes on theories of trans-dimensional physics. "Very close. I'm almost sorry you're dead. But not quite. And since I can't have anyone coming along and following in your footsteps." He crumpled the folder and it's notes smaller and smaller until, with a pop, it was gone altogether.

"Now," he looked down and the sleeping figure. "What to do about you. I'd rather you didn't go around trying to figure out what happened to the Old Man's papers. So, I think a little distraction is in order. Something that will tie a few of you up for a while." There was another pop, and he dropped a small video disc onto the desk, thoughtfully pushing it half under another folder. "There. That should keep you, your nosy husband, and my Queen busy for quite a while. Have fun, Auntie. I know I will."

He left the office, letting the door close normally behind him, then walked out through Command with another nod to the tech girl. From there, still wearing Zan's face, he entered the elevator and pressed a button at random.

When then elevator reached its designated floor and the doors opened, it was empty.

Aurora dragged herself back to wakefulness, convinced she was not alone. She pulled her head up and looked around the office. It was empty save herself, but she was sure she'd heard the door close.

Pushing the chair away from the desk, she stood , waiting a moment for her legs to steady themselves, then made her way out to Command.

Krysten looked up from her station. "Everything okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think so. Were you just in the office?"

"No. Didn't you just talk to Zan?"

"No," Aurora replied, confusion growing. "Was Zan up here?"

"Yeah. She was in your office for a couple of minutes. Wasn't she?"

Aurora sighed. "She must have been. I was taking a quick nap. Wonder why she didn't wake me"

"It's Zan. Who know? Maybe she left you a note or something. She was in there for a couple of minutes."

Aurora shrugged. "Must have. Okay. I'm going to get back to work. Where are the intrepid wanderers?"

"They left Fense not too long ago, heading for the Light-Year Limit. They wanted to look" Her voice trailed off, uncertain.

Aurora swallowed, then nodded. "Okay. Ring me when they're on their way in." She turned and headed back into the office.

"Will do."

The paperwork was a dusty pile of nothing. 

Aurora sighed tiredly, looking at the stack of detailed but ultimately useless folders that had made up a good portion of her father's files, torn about their disposition. Certainly, they would be of value to whomever was next to occupy this office, but these were hard-won scraps of data, information her father may well have made deals for. To turn it all over to someone without any kind of antecedents seemed irresponsible at the very least. She looked several times from the pile to the box, addressed to her mother in Montana, and, in a fit of determinism, scooped up the pile and dropped it into the box.

Or she would have, had her fingernail not caught against a bit of plastic, bending backward and forcing a quick exclamation from her. She dropped the folders, and they slid haphazardly against one another, spreading in a flood across the desk.

Injured finger in her mouth, she scrabbled through the pile with her uninjured hand, pulling out a disc she had never seen before. It was small, tiny, really, a micro-disc, the kind that might be used in a spy camera. She turned it over, and saw the tell-tale gleam on recorded data on the back. Whatever it was, and wherever it had come from, something was on it.

She moved over to the concealed screen and activated it, turning the disc over and over in her hand as she waited for the bookshelves to roll out of the way. Feeding the disc into the drive, she leaned against the side of the desk and waited.

The picture was blurry, showing what looked like some anonymous asteroid, perhaps in the Limit, or perhaps not. There was a blurry figure in the distance that could have been the informant Clet, or again, it could be anyone else. The view turned, showing a figure a dark flight suit, close, closer than the other figure. And in the background, there was something large and bright. Something that made Aurora's blood run cold. Quickly, she yanked the disk from the drive and stalked out of the office, not bothering to respond to Krysten's queries.

Aurora smacked her palm flat against the holo-room door until it opened, then rushed in, plugging the disk into the holo-generator's drive. "Computer, load data. Assume I am the recording source, and extrapolate 360 view and actions." She stepped into the middle of the empty room as the doors closed.

"Working," the computer said, immune to her anxiety. "Safety parameters?" it prompted.

It occurred to Aurora then that this could be very dangerous indeed. "On full," she said.

"Program loaded. Signal when ready."

Aurora took a deep breath. "Begin program now."

The room blacked out a moment, then the lights came back up revealing the rocky surface of an asteroid. The figure that could be Clet stood waiting in the distance, still slightly out of focus. "Computer, focus," she called. Clet came into to focus, pixelizing slightly, but still recognizable. She turned, and shuddered as a holographic length of metal passed harmlessly through her head. She figure holding the beam lifted it high overhead, and Aurora ducked instinctively.

"Computer, freeze program!"

The holographic bar stopped just above her head. Aurora unfolded herself from the ground slowly, then took a couple of quick steps to the side so the holographic beam no longer appeared to impale her.

She walked around the frozen figure, studying it, taking in the black flight suit and helmet, biting her lip a the sight of the bright hummingbird painted on the helmet. She looked from the frozen figure to the multi-colored ship in the distance. The ship she knew well, the ship that was Zan's favorite form of transportation. The HummingBird.

"Computer." Her voice sounded strange in her ears, hollow. "Isolate the attacking figure and do a peel-back on the helmet."

"Working." Quickly, it stripped away layers of the image until a face was revealed, making Aurora shudder. It was Zan, lips drawn back in an angry snarl, gray eyes blazing in anger.

Aurora stared at the image for a long moment, seething, then stormed out, leaving the program frozen.

Steven looked out the viewport, studying the barren chunk of rock they had set down on. "What's the word on atmosphere, Lieutenant?"

"Thin but breathable," he replied, looking up from a sensor. "We should be fine without suits, at least for a little while."

They released their restraint harnesses and trooped outside, splitting up to cover more ground.

Steven knelt carefully next to a dark patch on the ground, smelling the copper tang of blood under a fine layer of dust. Something glinted faintly in the dark patch, and he reached out, gently freeing it from the muck. He turned it in his fingers, watching the play of light off the golden surface. Stargazer's. No question about it.

Quicksilver's voice broke him from his reverie. "Find something?"

He stood and dropped the blood-and-dust encrusted bolt into Quick's open palm. "This is the spot," he said, walking away.

Jon stared at the bolt for a long moment, then wrapped his fist tightly around it. "We'll find whoever did this and lock them up somewhere very dark for a very long time."

The general was some 20 feet away, down on one knee, sifting dust through his fingers. "You think so?"

"I know we will. I swear it."

Steven inhaled deeply, then exhaled loudly. "I'm glad you're so certain, Lieutenant. I'm beginning to wonder, myself. Come on. There's nothing more to see here." 

Aurora stalked into the gym, eyes blazing, every nerve in her body tingling. Zan was alone in the gym, throwing series after series of kicks and punches at an invisible enemy. Had she stopped to watch, Aurora would have seen moves borrowed from several fighting disciplines, merged together to create a unique personal form. But her mind was on nothing more than hurting this person as badly as she had been hurt.

Zan saw her crossing the floor and dropped her stance, scooping up a towel and mopping the sweat from her face. "Hey, Crazy Lady, what's u-"

Her question was cut off as Aurora's fist flashed out of no where and landed with bone-jarring force on her jaw.

Zan staggered back a few steps, hand cradling her throbbing cheek. "What the FUCK was that about?!"

"It was you, you fucking bitch!" Aurora shouted, swinging at her again, Zan ducked, and the rush of the blow merely ruffled her hair. "You never liked him!"

"What the fuck are you on?" Zan demanded, ducking and blocking blows and kick. Distraught or enraged or whatever Aurora was, the skills she had picked up at the Academy hadn't abandoned her.

"You killed him!" Aurora shrieked in fury, unaware that her blows weren't landing with any effect. It was enough to be doing something, lashing out against someone, making them hurt as well.

"Killed who? Damnit what the fucking hell are you talking about?" She blocked two more punches in rapid succession and dodged a sweeping kick.

"Killed so many people lately you can't keep them straight? My FATHER, you whore."

"The hell?"

"I SAW it! I saw EVERYTHING! I found the disk and I saw what you did. Did you kill Clet too, to keep him from talking?!" Her blows and kicks were slowing down, her breath starting to come in gasps.

"Listen here you. I liked the old man, yeah he was a pain in my ass at times and too dammed old-fashioned at others. But if I had killed him, I sure as hell wouldn't have done it that way. A snap of the neck, a fast strike to the chest, perhaps a single shot though the head. I don't go into torture when it comes to killing. I prefer clean and swift."

Aurora dropped to her hands and knees, panting, then rocked back to sit on her heels, keening like an animal in pain.

Zan took a deep breath and sighed noisily, shaking her head in disgust. Somewhere along the line, the girl had been sold a bill of goods and she'd forgotten to check the manifest. It would have been funny, really, if there wasn't a dead body down in sick bay, waiting to go to his rest.

"Come on," she said, reaching down to help Aurora to her feet. "Let's get you back to your quarters and tucked int-" She broke off as Aurora lashed out again, backhanded this time, connecting hard with her mouth. 

"Son of a bitch," Zan spat, blood from her split lip accompanying the words.

"Don't touch me," Aurora hissed, rocketing back to her feet. "Don't you dare touch me!" She swung her fist again, but rather than blocking or evading, Zan caught her by the wrist.

"Okay, that's it. I've had enough of your 'Pity poor me, I'm the spoiled Princess' act. I know what it's like to lose family in the line of duty. It's time you woke up and learned that the universe is not a fair place. It never was and it will never be." She thrust Aurora away, and stepped back, pulling off her boots and belt then tossing her jacket onto the pile. Then she laid into Aurora, and the tide of the battle turned.

Granted, Aurora's training had been good, and granted she had pushed herself to excel at every portion of the SilverHawks Training Program. But she hadn't lived through life in a POW camp, or survived in the underground areas of Fense. And the anger and hatred that had fueled her were burning out, leaving her tired and slow. And now Zan was angry.

Had the fight been allowed to continue, things might have ended a good deal worse. Aurora had been able to fend off most of Zan's blows, but enough had gotten through to leave her tired and battered. She slashed out at Zan, nails angled to catch hair or skin when a body crashed into her, pulling her back. In some distant part of her mind, she was Zan's face glaring at her over Will's broad back, and she realized it was Steven holding her back. She sagged, suddenly too tired to stand, almost.

"She's okay," she heard Steven saying. "Just bruised. What about Zan?"

"The bitch split my lip."

"Time for separate corners I think, sir," Will said, struggling a bit to hold a writhing Zan.

"I agree. I'll take this one upstairs and put her down for a nap. Take Zan to sick bay, and I'll meet up with her there."

Then she was being carried, rocked, almost, the edge of sleep almost close enough to touch. 

"I saw her," she murmured as the blackness drifted up.

"Saw who?"

"Zan. Zan killed my father." The darkness swallowed her whole.

She was shying away from Shal'Shan's swab when Steven walked in. "I've done worse to myself, damn it. Just leave it alone." She hopped off the bed and paced like a caged animal. "Get her out of this, Steven. She's good, but she doesn't belong in this line of work."

"That's about the one thing I can't do, Captain. It's her decision, not mine."

"Then don't let her be consumed by revenge or a twisted sense of justice..." She turned and walked off, muttering while dabbing at the blood on her lip. "Damn she has a hard fist."

"That she does," Steven concurred, following her.

"And find out what the hell she was talking about, Me killing the old man. As if!"

"She said something about that, but she was nine parts asleep. What happened?"

"She stormed in and accused me of killing the old man. Said she had proof."

"What kind of proof? What set her off?" 

"You tell me. I might have thought he was a pain in the ass and a bit old fashioned a time or two, but I liked 'Gaze. He was fair in his decisions."

"What a stunning eulogy," he said flatly. "All right. Come on. We're going to have to do some digging to straighten this out."

"You're not just taking her word for it?" Zan asked, faintly condescending.

"Innocent until proven guilty, Captain. Reasonable doubt. I'm sure you remember them. Now let's get moving."

"So what are we looking for?" Zan asked as the elevator doors opened on Command.

"Whatever Aurora has been up to today, to start with. Corporal, I need a movements log for today."

Krysten nodded, fingers flying. "Yes, sir. Zan, did you need to leave another note for Aurora? She's not in right now."

Zan's head snapped around. "What?"

"Didn't you leave her a note earlier? She said you didn't wake her when you went in" Krysten's voice trailed off at the confusion on Zan's face.

"I haven't been up here all day," she said slowly.

Steven looked up from the printout Skyedansuer had prepared for him. "What happened, Corporal?"

"Zan came up, maybe an hour ago. She went into the office for a couple minutes, then came back out."

"I swear I haven't been up here today before now," Zan said when Steven looked at her.

"But I saw you," Krysten insisted. "You nodded on the way in, and on the way back out."

Steven flipped through the pages. "About an hour ago?" he asked, tracking through the timeline on the page. "This puts your signature in the rec room."

Krysten started. "But I-"

"Relax, Corporal. I believe you saw someone. Right now, I want you to go through the computer. Look for anything off, anything that's been changed. If it looks funny to you, for whatever reason, I want to know about it." He turned to look at Zan. "I'm going to ask you to stay out here while I check the office, Captain. I know this is difficult, but we'll have it sorted out soon."

Zan snorted, but dropped obligingly into a chair at one of the terminals, sulking as Steven disappeared down the hallway to the office. Then she turned to watch as Krysten brought up screen after screen of information, scanning through it rapidly. "So what did this other me say?" she asked.

"Nothing," Krysten replied, eyes firmly fixed on her work. "But that didn't seem out of the ordinary, really."

"Huh." Zan was at a loss for words.

Wrapped pictures in boxes with packets of letters, files strewn all over the desk, the video screen uncharacteristically naked, its concealing bookcases left hanging open.

Steven took in the scene, garnering details from more than just the clutter and chaos. The same miasma he had detected on Stargazer and the asteroid hung in the air, and he was getting tired of it. It was part of a different life, a life he'd walked away from, a life he wanted nothing to do with now. But it seemed that life wanted a part of him still. He just hoped what it wanted wasn't more than he was willing to risk.

Nothing in the office was going to help, he realized, and he turned on his heel, leaving.

  
"I think I have something, sir," Krysten said as he returned to Command. The monitors around her were filled with text, and she highlighted two section side by side. "This is the personnel log from the day of the Commander's death, from the perpetual archive on the main system. This," she said, indicating the next screen, "is the back-up copy that's made every evening and archived on disk. This entry here," she tapped the first screen, "indicates that Zan left 10 minutes after the Commander. This one, the back-up, made on the day, doesn't."

"So the original file was altered," Steven concluded. 

"Yes, sir. And the notation here, at the end of the edited entry, indicates that it was made from a remote terminal. That particular code is for Commander Stargazer's personal terminal, sir. Whenever it was altered, it was done from inside the Commander's quarters."

"Weren't his quarters sealed?"

"Yes, sir. They're still sealed," she said, bringing up a graphic of the 5th floor. The line around Stargazer's quarters was solid red, locked, with no access from the outside.

"All right. We'll track that down later. The fact remains that the changes were made there." He stared at the mismatched logs for a long moment. "Can you show me today's movement logs?"

She pressed a few more keys, and the list was replaced. He traced the day's activities, finding the notation where he had gone out with Quicksilver, where Aurora had gone into the office, where Zan had entered the gym. "Give me a security video recap here," he said, tapping a time index.

Another screen lit up, and he watched Aurora jerk her way out of the office in time-lapse video, across Command and into the elevator.

"Follow her."

The view switched from camera to camera as she descended to the third floor, stormed through more halls, and entered a holo room. It hadn't escaped his attention that throughout the journey, she had clutched something tightly in her fist.

"That's our next stop."

The program was still running when they got down there, paused, with the virtual-Zan still poised to deliver a crushing blow to her prey. The actual Zan circled it critically, frowning.

"It can't be real," she said. "I never use that expression." She waved a hand to indicate the entire holo. "It's too expressive."

Steven looked from one to another. "Okay, it you say so. But it's a good likeness."

"A good likeness, yes, but still too bloody expressive. The only that came that close would be when I was in Never mind."

Steven glanced at her. "We've managed to fill in most of the gaps in your history. But that's neither here nor there."

"Right. I'm sure the Commander filled you in on some of the other events, too," she said as she looked things over. "Computer, zoom in on the HummingBird."

The whole room's focus slid sideways, shifting them from the frozen figure to the ship stationed some 40 feet away. It was a strange sensation, as the ground seemed to slide by underneath them though nothing actually moved.

Zan combed over it, hands roving over every inch and ticking off inconsistencies as she found them one by one.

"It's more like it was 5 years ago than it is now," she said at last. "I could show you-"

"Relax," Steven said, cutting her off. "I have no doubt that you weren't involved. No. I think I know what this is."

"So what do we do now?"

"I have to go talk to someone." He turned and walked toward the door. Zan grumbled under her breath and he paused. "I heard that. Do me a favor. While I'm gone, have Shal'Shan prepare the body for transit. I'm going to see a couple of people, then I'm going to help the Lieutenant take her father home."

"Shouldn't she be making the arrangements?" Zan asked.

"I'm authorizing you. Just do whatever you thing is best."

  
"Alex? Alex!" Steven's footsteps crunched across the surface of the asteroid. "I'm not here to play games, Alex."

"And here I was having so much fun, Uncle."

Steven turned to see the young man leaning against an up-thrust of rock, arms folded negligently across his chest. "Why did you do it, Alex?"

He offered a half-hearted shrug. "Because I could?" he replied. "Because it was fun, because I wanted to. Take your pick, Uncle. It's all the same to me."

"That's a lie and you know it."

"Nope. It's the absolute truth. And your precious Commander was getting too close to figuring out things he was never meant to know. That snitch Clet had the last piece of the puzzle for him. That was just too much. Sorry if it got, you know, personal."

Steven advanced on him. "You killed my wife's father. It doesn't GET much more personal."

"I said I was sorry. At least about the personal part." He held his ground in the face of his advancing kinsman. "Ah, ah, ah, Uncle. No fighting out here where the mortals can see us."

Steven stared at him for a long moment, clenched fist   
tingling. "You'd better hope I never see your face here again, Raven."

"Oh, you won't, I assure you. I have everything I want from this place. Ta-ta." He vanished in a flash of light. 

"That's a childish trick, and you know it."

The old ones are the best.

Raven's presence dissipated, and Steven trudged back to his ship.

Zan was waiting in the hangar when he returned.

"Problem?" he asked, heading for the elevator.

"No," she replied, falling into step beside him. "Just waiting for you to get back so the loading could proceed. Anything else you need?"

"Yes. Come up to the office with me a minute."

The silence in the elevator was uncomfortable, but she left it alone, only casting an occasional questioning glance his way.

"Have a seat," he said, indicating the chair behind the desk as they entered. She cast him an other quizzical look, but did as he directed. "Like it?" he asked. "Comfy?"

"It's fine, I suppose. Why?" Here eyes narrowed in deliberation. 

"It's yours," he said quickly. "You're the new Commanding Officer."

"I'm WHAT!?!?!?" Her shriek echoed through Hawk Haven.

"You heard me," he said quietly. "Comes complete with a promotion to Colonel, effective immediately." There was something drawn and tired in his face.

She flopped back into the chair, grumbling curses under her breath. "How long?"

He shrugged. "As long as it takes?"

"I'm cursed." She covered her face with a hand and rolled her eyes upwards.

"Probably," he agreed. "This isn't a license to do whatever you want, you know. Until further notice, Fense is still out of bounds."

"Officially."

"Officially," he agreed. "Which means don't be doing anything I have to come up here and lecture you for."

She smiled, much too innocently. "Who said I would be doing anything?"

"I'm glad you find the idea so appealing." She was silent, so he forged ahead. "Aurora will be taking leave for two weeks, and I'll check up on you when I bring her back. Until then, just keep everything on an even keel."

"Un-huh."

He studied her for a long moment. "Any questions, comments? Snide remarks?"

"I'll give you the novel before you leave."  
He looked down at his watch. "You've got about 15 minutes. Give me the cliff Notes version."

She sighed in irritation. "Forget it."

"All right, then. I have to pack. I'll see you when I get back. Good luck, Colonel."

"Yeah yeah...."

"Don't sound so enthusiastic. It could be much worse."

"Don't even go there!"

"You know who to call if you run into trouble. See you in a couple of weeks."

"Fine, See you then General." She wheeled the chair around to face the window as he left.

Epilogue  
Two Weeks Later

The office was dark when Steven entered, the large desk chair turned to face the window. "I seem to remember something like this happening with the Wild Hunt......It seems that every time I get a promotions, it's because someone else has been killed." Zan's voice was muffled behind the chair.

"Maybe that means you're the one we can trust when the really heavy shit comes down.

"It still bites though." She swung around to face him, chin propped on her fist as her elbow rested on the chair arm. " And for the record, I never asked for this."

"No one asked if you asked. No one's going to ask if you want it. It's simply the way it's going to be."

There was a silent pause then she sighed. "Sucks to be me."

"Everyone takes their turn, Zan. Today's just your day." He sank down onto the sofa. "Aurora's going to need a few minutes to speak to you. Try not to give her too much grief. She's a little...fragile, still." He was silent for a moment. "I wasn't in favor of her coming back at all, but she was...insistent."

Zan just nodded. "Everything here and in the commander's room will packed up and put down in storage once it's been gone through. Do you want me to have the stuff shipped back to Earth?"

"Please. Straight back to Montana, and if you can do it quietly, I'd take it as a real favor."

"Both quietly and quickly can be easily done." A sort of half smirk crossed her face. "I do still have several shipping companies to my name, you know."

"That's fine. There are apparently several files in here that Aurora wanted to ship back. I'm leaving that up to your discretion. You might need them eventually."

"I've already got most of the files copied. I may not have the originals, but I won't be without them either." indicating the stack of file boxes against one wall.

"Whatever works for you. I'm not quite sure what she wanted with them, frankly."

"With what I have seen so far..." She shrugged. "It can be put to good use or bad depending on who is doing what."

"That's entirely up to you," Steven reiterated. "I'm heading back out before Sin-off, so if you need anything else, now's the time."

She waved him off. "I'm managing. Everything will straighten itself out. Does Aurora need to see me right away?"

"Before you put her back on the roster."

"May as well see her now then, unless you have anything else."

"Nope. I'm through." He offered her a half-smile. "You're looking very comfortable behind that desk."

"Better some days than others. I'm sure that's just what you wanted."

"More like what I expected. I'll talk to you again before I go."

"I'll wait on pins and needles."

"Smart-alek." He slipped out the door before she could get off a good parting shot.

Aurora looked tired, she noted. The bags under her eyes were still present, despite the touch of sun she'd managed to pick up, and she looked thinner, though that could be a trick of lighting. She sat quietly in the chair and offered Zan a slight smile. 

"That desk looks good on you," she sad softly.

"It wasn't my choice," Zan replied, feeling her hackles start to rise. 

"I know. I know you didn't have any choice in the matter. I don't know if I could have done it, had they asked me." She toyed with a number of copper bangles on her wrist. "I'm not staying," she said at last. "My 20 years are up in September, and I'm bowing out graciously then."

"Why?" Zan asked bluntly.

"Lots of reasons, really. I did what I came here to do, mostly. Jon's found, he's doing his job, I've picked up everything I'm going to in three years. It's just time," she said quietly. "You don't need me here."

"Steven told you that recording was faked, didn't he?" Zan asked, leaning forward. 

Aurora nodded. "Yes. I understand that."

"But?"

"But, I can't un-see what I saw. I can't change what's rooted deep down. My head says forget it, but my heart won't let it go. It's not fair to you. And this is no way to run a marriage. Steven has the patience of a saint, but I need to start thinking more about my family."

Zan studied her through narrowed eyes. "That's not even funny."

"No, but it wasn't meant to be. Look at it this way; if someone ever asks you if you'd hit a pregnant woman, you can say yes."

"Only if she hit me first," Zan snapped back.

"Touché. You're good at it, even. Anyway, that's about all I needed to tell you. I'm taking myself off field duty, but I'll sub in for Krysten more often to keep things balanced."

"At least until September."

"Yes. Oh, I should let you know that Jon's promotion should come through any day. HQ generously kicked me back up to Lieutenant Commander 'on consideration of the circumstances,' while I was on leave." The irony in her voice was clear. 

"There's been a rash of field promotions lately. You'll get used to it."

"I hope not. Steven's leaving soon, if there's nothing else."

Zan waved a dismissive hand. "Go ahead. And welcome back."

Aurora stood. "Thanks. I'll see you later." She turned and left quietly.

Zan tilted her chair back, steepled fingers pressed to her pursed lips. She watched Aurora's figure retreat through the glass in the door, pondering.  


* * *

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